These forums are now read-only. Please visit our new forums to participate in discussion. A new account will be required to post in the new forums. For more info on the switch, see this post. Thank you!

Sorry if this question is stupid/answered already, but when I enter items in the Inbox and press the return key after I have finished entering the text, OmniFocus finishes the item and automatically creates the next item. I am coming from working with outliners (Circus Ponies Notebook) where I could say that return finishes the cell but does not create a new one. I prefer this way to work -- is there any way to tell OmniFocus that it should not create a new item when I finish entering the previous one by pressing return?

If you are using the Quick Entry window, you can configure OmniFocus to save the item(s) and close the QE window when you press Return. See the General Preferences. In the main body of the program, pressing the Enter key instead of Return will close the current row without creating another. Depending on your keyboard, you might need to hold the fn key while pressing Return to get this function. Or you can hit the Esc key to end the edit.

Is there a way to flip the action of the Return and Enter keys? I.e., pressing Return would close the current row, pressing Enter would create a new row. On the wide metal keyboard with the numeric keypad Enter is out of the way and not convenient. (I'll bet this human factors topic has been debated at length in OF circles, so consider this just my vote for flipping the function.)

By the way Enter is the same as pressing Escape if you are in a field, the preference kicks in when you have a row selected and press Escape again that it will close QuickEntry without saving.

Also though it says control+return with "always" add a new item, it only does this if you are still in a field. If you have selected a row and press that it won't make a new entry. I think that is just and oversight and one that I keep running into a few times a day. I usually just save it and reopen the QuickEntry box rather then press Tab and then Control+Enter.

Thanks whpalmer4 your post made me experiment, I forgot about a few of the quick keys (like shift+return makes an entry above) here and learned a new one. Option+Return stacks text on top of each other, ctrl+enter & opt+enter does the same thing.

This annoyed me for a while too. I could never remember to hit Esc instead of Enter. But then I learned to love this feature. The shortcuts they have in to QUICKLY dump your brain in the inbox and process it are one of aspects that makes OF easier to stick with than other systems. Being able to keep entering as I think because hitting Enter gives me a new line is awesome.

I also noticed that if i'm dumping my brain in the inbox and go to far (hit enter and get new action I didn't want) then hitting backspace/delete removes that new line and all is well.